All Parties Unite to Celebrate Tamil Nadu Formation Day

Traditionally, November 1 is the State reorganization Day when State borders were redrawn on linguistic basis in 1956 and Madras State came into existence. Subsequently Madras State was renamed as Tamil Nadu on July 18,1967, when C N Annadurai was the Chief Minister.

Stalin, on Friday, said in a message on X that November 1 marked the day of frontier martyrs who protected the State’s borders in the north and south and that their sacrifice should be remembered.

Those martyrs struggled to merge Tamil speaking areas and places where Tamil people lived in majority with the State, he said and paid tributes to them.

Leader of the Opposition, Edappadi K Palaiswami, recalled his government declaring November 1 as Tamil Nadu Day and greeted the people on the occasion by invoking the phrase ‘Thekanathir Sirantha Dravida Thiruadam’ (the great Dravida land in the south), whose skipping by singers of the Tamil anthem at an event in Doordarshan office had triggered a controversy recently.

Palaniswami made use of the opportunity to hit out at the present DMK government, by asking the people to take a pledge to redeem the State from the ‘evil DMK’ at the earliest and make it a glorious place as poet Bharati had seen it.

BJP state president K Annamalai, who is on a sabbatical in the UK, said Tamil Nadu that came into existence on this day as a State for Tamil people had lost its glory due to the rule of the DMK.

Founder president of the nascent Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), Vijay, said that day should be celebrated as Tamil Nadu Day as the present geographical boundaries were defined on this day when the states were reorganised on linguistic basis in1956.

Vijay, however, said that the State was renamed as Tamil Nadu only because Sankaralinganar undertook a fast unto death for giving the name as Annadurai was moved by that. He remembered the ‘frontier fighters’ for their sacrifice in bringing Tamil speaking areas into the State.

Apart from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, seven States and four Union Territories in the country celebrated their formation day on Friday.

Governor R N Ravi greeted the people of the State, which he said had a rich spiritual, cultural and literary heritage that immensely shaped the idea and identity of Bharat.